Panama

For those of you who don't know I spent two years living in Panama while working for the Peace Corps. If you think that Panama is only the country with the canal you are missing out. Panama is an adventurous travelers paradise.

Panama City's closest cousin is Miami without the beach. Safe. Sultry. And with an diverse mix of old architecture, high-rise condos, interesting shopping, and uniquely painted public transit. Outside of Panama City one can find beautiful beaches, great surfing, three distinct indigenous groups, amazing wildlife, historical artifacts, not to mention the canal. Don't get me wrong - Panama is not Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a better destination for the average American. It has better tourist infrastructure making most of the attractions that tourists want to see more easily accessible. One of the things that Panama has that Costa Rica doesn't have is the chance to get a more authentic experience. Experiencing the real Panama takes some guts and some luck - but in a country as safe as Panama (outside of the City of course) taking those risks aren't nearly as scary as they might be in other parts of the world.

Levende East

If you haven't been to Levende East in Old Oakland, it is worth a visit.

A hip upscale dining area complemented by fun and fanciful food. Everyone in my group was pleased with their entres, from fish to ribs. The smaller starters while tasty weren't worth their caloric to dollar ratio and there was consensus to avoid them on future visits.

As the evening wore on the loud chatter from the bar filled the restaurant and made conversation a little difficult. If you want to go for the food - go early. If you want to go for the scene and the people watching - go late.

In my book Levende East gets 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Stumbling

Of all the Internet tools I've discovered in the past ten years Stumbleupon has to be my favorite.
It's a tool that you can use to 'channel surf' the Internet when you are bored. I've discovered hundreds of cool websites that I never would have found with it. It's interface is easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to manipulate. I have a small but growing group of friends who use it to send each other interesting sites without having to paste URLs into emails. When someone sends me a site a number pops up on my stumble toolbar and when I want a break from real work I click on it to see what it is.

I've never used any of the blogging or networking capability that stumble has built into its website. I'm not a web 2.0 person. I might some day. But for now stumble is by far the best way to discover great photos, interesting sites, and cool games on the Internet without having to do the legwork yourself.

Like google it is the only other computer application/website that I've begun to use as a verb. And that is saying something.

Banana Bread Recipe

This is my favorite banana bread recipe. The tartness of the lime and the sweetness of the brown sugar make me lip my lips with every bite.

Thanks to the Queeniecarly blog for reminding me of this recipe.

As a note, I leave out the coconut - after two years of eating coconut fish soup in Kuna Yala I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy that flavor again. Too much tule masi ruined it for me.

From the cookbook Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

Yellowman's Banana Lime Bread
In St. Lucia and Anguilles, I made friends with some local people after repeated visits to the same beaches. I won't forget their great nicknames: Merit, Rah's Bucket, Campbell Soup, Sugar Ray, the Ram, So-lar, Freakout, Domino, Splif and Gorgeous. This tasty bread is named after Yellowman.

Yields 1 loaf.

BATTER
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)
3 tablespoons milk (or plain yogurt)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup unsweetened grated coconut, toasted
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

GLAZE
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon rum
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

TOPPING
1/4 cup unsweetened grated coconut, toasted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
To make the batter, in a large mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Stir in the eggs, bananas, milk or yogurt, and lime juice. Add the salt, ginger, and grated coconut and mix well. Sift the flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix them until smooth. Pour the butter into the buttered loaf pan and bake for an hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the bread for about 10 minutes before removing it from the pan.
Meanwhile, for the glaze, combine the brown sugar, butter, rum, and lime juice in a small saucepan on low heat, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes, until it becomes a thin syrup. Pour this glaze over the loaf, spreading it with a spatula or spoon to coat the top and sides. Sprinkle toasted grated coconut evenly over the glazed loaf.

Playing

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend we hosted a welcome picnic at Codornices Park in Berkeley for new students of the Department of City and Regional Planning. The actual picnic itself was nothing to write home about, besides that homemade raspberry pie that someone brought.

The outdoor/experiential educator inside me got excited about organizing some fun events thought would get different cohorts of students interacting together. Before the picnic I filled some water balloons and brought other stuff for different activities. I was afraid that without silly activities to break down some of the tension we wouldn't get to know each other and would stick to talking to the people. There wasn't as much interaction as I would have liked but I had trouble pulling people away from the picnic tables in the shade to the field in the sun.

After some prodding we got a critical mass out onto the field tossing the frisbee around. We pulled out the water balloons and had a great time with a water balloon toss. It's been so long since I've participated in a water balloon toss that I forgot how much fun they are. As we grow older I think that we forget how much fun it is to actually play as if we were kids. Unfortunately after the balloon toss the picnic broke itself up and so we didn't have much of an opportunity to continue playing together. Hopefully at future events we'll have the opportunity to play more games and be less serious - I feel like our department is way too serious.

In fact, I think we probably should have used the best feature at Codornices Park and gone down the amazing cement slide.

Codornices Park Slide, originally uploaded by show and tell.